Ingredients
1medium-sized green cabbage 3 tbsp sea salt (or more, if you'd like slower developing, but sourer kraut) 2 tbsp caraway seeds 2 tbsp black pepper 2 tsp juniper berries 1 tsp dill seedsSo, with any luck, in the time that has passed since the last installment of the Reuben Quest, your sourdough starters have transformed from sweet little pots of floury goo into happily bubbling little microbial villages, primed and ready for hitherto unexplored dimensions of bread baking. This brings us to the next component of our sandwich, and the one that requires the second-most time to develop. That, of course, is sauerkraut.
Sauerkraut itself probably deserves some explanation, because, if you’re at all like I was, prior to barking on this fermentation quest, you’ve likely never given much thought to why, let alone how, one might want to make sauerkraut. In fact, maybe before we get rolling with the “why” and the “how,” we should start a little bit more simply. For the moment, let’s take a second to examine the “what.” While there are many variations on this basic process, sauerkraut (which translates from German as, “sour cabbage”) is essentially comprised of two simple elements – cabbage and salt.
Hah, but this is a trick! In fact, in keeping with the larger theme of this series of articles, our cabbage, like the wheat kernels of the previous article, is actually anything but simple, and there is much more to it than meets the eye. When you buy a cabbage, you are already buying a little unseen microbial society of different friendly creatures, waiting patiently, and hopefully for the chance to transform your mere cabbage into magical sauerkraut. Sauerkraut belongs to a sadly neglected branch of our culinary landscape – pickled foods. Treasured for centuries as a safe way to keep the summer harvest intact through the long, dark winter months, sauerkraut has a number of things going for it. It’s easy to make, keeps for ages (when properly made and stored), requires only readily available materials and equipment, is quite tasty, and is also (in appropriate quantities) extremely healthy. In fact it’s quite a bit more healthy than plain raw cabbage (which is already pretty healthy, if not especially tasty on its own), but we’ll get back to that later.
As most people are aware, pickling was a form of preservation historically used to keep vegetables edible, but, again, if you’re like I was, this is pretty much where your idea about how the process works trails off. Consequently, many pickles (be they cabbage, cucumber, tomato, onion, etc.) today are made using cheap white vinegar as a time-saving, and therefore cost-cutting measure. If you’ve bought sauerkraut in stores, the odds are pretty good that, unless you bought it from a real sauerkraut stickler (and we’re pretty rare), this shortcut has likely been taken. The original way to get the acid that keeps the food safe wasn’t just to pour it on top, then put it in the fridge – it was, in a sense, to grow your own acid.
This brings us back to our methodology – like with the sourdough starter, what we are trying to do is to create a welcoming environment in which the desired microbes (lactobacilli, amongst various others) can thrive, and work their magic upon our food. Many different types of microorganisms will be only too willing to eat our aging cabbage, but only a few will safely share it with us, and those few happen to tolerate the presence of salt. In a happy coincidence, those unfriendly ones, who, left to their own devices, would ruthlessly bully and dominate the peaceful and happy microbes that we want, cannot live with salt, so, to ensure that our waiting cabbage is found by the right types of microbes, all we have to do is add salt.
Before we dive into the recipe itself, there are a few other basic ideas to talk about here. First off – in order to quickly and reliably find our way to the perfect conditions for making sauerkraut, we need to create an environment where, in addition to high levels of salinity, we don’t expose our fermenting cabbage to the open air which could potentially be a source of all kinds of unwelcome invaders. So, to provide the requisite protection from the air and preservative salinity, we need to create a brine (which is really just about any salty liquid), and, given the right treatment, the combination cabbage and salt alone will pretty much do this for us. In precisely the same way that salt can be used to dry meat, by pulling the water out of it, finely shredded cabbage rubbed with salt will, providing it’s fresh enough (and it usually is), quickly produce enough liquid to give us exactly the kind of brine we need. The other protective step we need to take is to find something with which to weigh down our fermenting cabbage, but we’ll return to that at the appropriate point in the recipe. For the moment, let’s just get the sauerkraut ball rolling, and we’ll deal with weights and how to use them when the time comes.
As one last quick diversion before the recipe, we should briefly consider just how we want our sauerkraut to taste. Without the addition of any other extra flavourings, sauerkraut tastes quite a lot like tangy, subtly more complex, vaguely sour creamy/yogurty cabbage. This isn’t at all a bad thing, and I would urge you to try making a batch or two of sauerkraut this way before experimenting with other flavourings. (Or, maybe just set aside a portion of your first batch for the plain version.) But, that having been said, sauerkraut making is a food medium which takes quite agreeably to a wide variety of different spices, and herbs. Personally, my favourite version is with caraway, dill seeds, lots of black pepper, and juniper berries. So, any of those flavourings that you like, you should feel free to use, and any of those that you don’t, you should feel free to omit. Bay leaf, garlic, mustard seeds, and horseradish are also all classic additions to sauerkraut, if any of those should strike your fancy. (But, the sky’s pretty much the limit here. You could take cues from sauerkraut’s Korean cousin, kimchi, and add hot peppers, and fish sauce, or could add white wine, or, really just about anything.)
Preparation
- Mix salt and spices to combine, and grind them in a mortar and pestle, or coffee grinder. Once I’ve ground them, I like to leave them in a handy little bowl so I can easily reach in for big pinches of the mixture.
- Cut the cabbage into quarters, and cut out the hard and somewhat fibrous core from each section. (Note: this coring step is optional, but it will yield more texturally consistent results).
- Shred the cabbage into fine, ribbon-like slices (roughly the thickness of spaghettini). If you’re pressed for time, or don’t care for knife work, a food processor would probably make short work of this. Personally, I like to do it by hand, but to each their own. As you progress through the cabbage quarters, place layers of shredded cabbage at the bottom of a large cylindrical crock (okay, this is ideal, but you probably don’t have one. I use the base bowl from my old slow cooker, and it works like a charm, but, really, the only things that count are being big, sturdy, and reasonably easy to cover afterwards), and generously sprinkle your salt mixture on the shredded cabbage as you go.
- As you work away at this, unless you have a really, really big bowl, you will probably find that one cabbage produces a staggering and seemingly uncontainable volume of shredded bulk. This is, actually, quite all right. In order to get the water out from the cabbage that is going to form our brine, it will likely need some fairly firm convincing, anyway. Whenever your bowl starts to get full, and awkward to work with, stop chopping, and give the salted cabbage a good vigorous mix. In fact, a little bit of physical force doesn’t hurt here – squashing it down, and driving some of the water out will make it easier to fit, and this will jump-start the brining process. Don’t be shy – this isn’t fragile stuff.
- Once you’ve finished with your cabbage, with any luck, it will be forming a dandy brine on its own. If this isn’t the case, though, give it another minute or two of vigorous mixing and firm packing down.
- This step will require some creativity and/or adjustment to the shape of your bowl, but, in order to continue to drive out the liquid, and ensure that the level of the liquid stays about the sauerkraut itself at all times, some kind of physical weight will need to be added on top of the cabbage. I like to use a (clean!) plate with a big (clean!) jar of water sitting on top of it to keep my sauerkraut submerged. You may find that a plate isn’t a good fit for your bowl, in which case, just the jar might do. In fact, I’ve read about the idea of using a scrubbed and boiled rock as a weight, and that would probably work quite well. I’ve never found the need, but, if you get in a jam, and aren’t squeamish about appropriating a rock for use in the kitchen – more power to you!
- Use plastic cling wrap to cover the top of the bowl, protecting it from the outside air. (Note: this isn’t strictly necessary. A tea towel will do fine for keeping dust out, and will keep insects away, which are the two crucial parts of the covering step, but I’ve lost a batch or two to unfriendly invading microorganisms which has made me take a bit of extra care, and using plastic wrap largely avoids this potential problem.)
- If it hasn’t developed enough liquid to cover the cabbage within 24 hours (and, with some bowl/vessel shapes, this may be likely), prepare some additional brine (1 cup of water with 1-2 tsps of sea salt mixed in), and pour that in to cover. However, it’s worth noting that you want to leave a bit of room above the level of the liquid because it will bubble gently as it starts to ferment, which can cause brine to bubble up and out of the fermenting vessel. If you leave a precautionary inch of headspace, you’ll be made in the shade.
Expanding slightly on this step – there are two cardinal rules to making sauerkraut: always keep the sauerkraut submerged, and if you need to add water to it, make sure there’s some salt mixed in so that the level of salinity isn’t lost to dilution. If you observe these two rules, your cabbage will be happily colonized by a succession of microbes, culminating in the lactobacilli who create much of the sourness and distinctive yogurty flavour. (Note: this is because they are the same microbes that give yogurt its tanginess. Probiotic yogurt is yogurt where the live cultures haven’t all been killed by pasteurization, so, yes, in case you’re wondering, those same health benefits we’re always seeing yogurt ads for on TV can also be had from sauerkraut. It might make for slightly less slick commercials, though.) - Leave your fermenting vessel alone at room temperature, and out of direct sunlight for 2-4 weeks, checking periodically to ensure nothing obviously unfriendly is happening. (And trust me, if something goes wrong, it will be obvious.) This check entails taking a look at your sauerkraut, giving it a smell (it will smell earthy and vibrantly alive, but shouldn’t smell offensive or rotten. If that happens, throw it out, and start again.), and, after a week or two, giving it a taste to see if it has reached the desired level of sourness. The longer you leave it for, the more completely it will be transformed, and the greater the degree of sourness will be. After a certain point, though, the cabbage will become unpleasantly mushy. The rate of fermentation is influenced by the level of salinity of the brine, and by atmospheric temperature. The colder it is (or, the higher the salinity), the more gradual the process will be. (Also, by some accounts, the slower the fermentation, the more elegant the finished product will be, despite the longer time required. I haven’t tested this, though.) When it starts to taste pleasingly sour and complex, and retains a refreshing crunchiness, it’s ready to eat. (This is a matter of personal taste, though. Some may prefer it more fresh, and others more sour. I like it pretty sour, personally.)
- Whenever it reaches your desired state, transfer it to the fridge (or, if it’s more convenient, into jars first) which will (virtually) halt the fermentation, and enjoy!
Worth Noting
On the topic of enjoyment – oddly enough, one of favourite times to have sauerkraut is just after a run. I’m not sure how to explain this, but it’s something that I start to crave when I’m home after a long run, and I know there’s sauerkraut in the fridge. I suppose that, with the water, salt, and residual sugars, it’s sort of like an invigourating, cabbagey electrolyte replacement-type thing.
As your sauerkraut ferments, it may develop a “bloom” on top, which is to say, some whitish stuff on the surface that looks slightly off-putting. This isn’t anything to worry about. If your sauerkraut develops such a bloom (as it may, depending on many variables, including temperature, and the cabbage itself), and you find it unpleasant, you won’t do any harm by skimming it off the top. I usually do this, if necessary, before putting my sauerkraut into jars and into the fridge, but it’s definitely not a cause for concern. The overwhelming likelihood is that it should only be a surface phenomena, and that the sauerkraut itself will be safe beneath its briny layer of defensive liquid.
I won’t bore you with a litany of quasi-magical assertions about health benefits, but there are a couple of quick things that are worth touching on. Cabbage is, like the rest of the Brassicaceae family (including cauliflower, broccoli, mustard, brussels sprouts, turnip, horseradish, and various leafy greens such as kale and collard greens), is a good source of the powerful cancer-fighting chemicals called isothiocyanates. Interestingly, while the raw form of the vegetables are good sources of these healthy compounds, the fermented form – sauerkraut – is actually an even better source. Similarly, cabbage is an excellent source of vitamin C (another suspected cancer fighter), but much of the potential vitamin C is lost to oxidization in the cooking process. However, in the case of sauerkraut, where the cabbage is kept submerged under the brine, and protected from the air, it retains this vitamin C. (The German navy used to take sauerkraut on long voyages for precisely the same reason that the British navy took limes – fighting scurvy. Also, this practice earned the nickname “limeys” for the British sailors, and “krauts” for their German counterparts.)
Also, as a little additional benefit that relates to the ultimate direction of The Reuben Quest – the sodium nitrite which is an essential safeguard and preservative in any cured meat (such as the corned beef we’re working our way up to) has been linked to a number of potential health concerns. The concentrations used in cured meats (IE – all forms of bacon, ham, commercial sausage, pastrami, smoked meats of all kinds… you get the idea) are quite low, but it’s still not something that your doctor would like to you be eating all the time. However, studies have indicated that as much as 80% of the potential risk posed by nitrites/nitrates can be eliminated by having a good source of vitamin C along with your cured meat. So, evidently the people who decided to have sauerkraut with their corned beef were on to something, and it wasn’t just that they taste good together.
Finally, I’d like to mention that the option exists to add some shredded red cabbage in with your green cabbage for a truly awesome colour. However, while I haven’t tested this thoroughly enough to say for certain what the cause was, when I tried adding red cabbage in with green cabbage, the sauerkraut fermented more slowly, and remained firmer and more crunchy than I really like it to be. As I say, this could just have been a quirk – I only tried it a few times. So, I leave it up to you: adding red cabbage will definitely give you an amazing colour, but the texture may be slightly compromised. Or, it may not – it could have been coincidence. In any event, 1/4 of a red cabbage should be plenty for the colour.
